The genre features fast tempos, low-register, quick, complex guitar riffs, and high-register guitar solos. Palm muting and staccato are used in these tightly controlled riffs to create a "chugging" sound. Thrash guitar solos are almost exclusively played at high speed, as they are usually characterised by shredding, and use techniques such as sweep picking, legato phrasing, alternate picking, string skipping, and two-hand tapping.

The music tends to have a visceral, propellant feel to it due to the often intense drumming, most commonly utilizing the snare drum on the 1/2 beat, or the 2nd and 4th beats of the measure. Frantic bass drum use is also common.

But perharps what thrash metal lyrics most often include is a nihilistic view of the society and the human being in general, for it working with warfare, brutal feelings supposedly hidden into human unconsciousness and visions of a possible future collapse of civilization

Due to the genre's high speed, many thrash bassists use a pick to keep up with the other instruments.

heavy riffs, and kick-ace solos ,and lyrics that either deal with the world and how screwed up it is or politics or religion, a booming double bass throughout the song or in the intro,and a singer that don't sound like M.J.::animatedlaugh

Hmm, I actually play in a Death Metal band, but I wrote a lot of different stuff yet. I actually get a lot of thrashing riffs if I just play through some different combinations of powerchords with a lot of palm-muting... Then I search for some good melodies - if needed (for thrash songs often not) - that fit the riffs or the structure... Thrash solos are actually just nonsense shredding scales without atmosphere, so thrash songs don't need much work at all.

Heavy Metal is a bit more difficult to compose. I actually think of a melody first, before I do the rest, because the melody is what makes Heavy Metal so catchy, sometimes I already have a groovy riff in mind and write it first, but that's not often the case. Melodies are most likely written in my head, but sometimes I just find some through improvisation. The solos are also already finished in my head and just have to be worked out on my guitar. That's how I do it